


>Day 5 (July 24th)

by KidScrappy



Series: Iwaoi weeks 2015 [12]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Almost two decades of pining, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-11 01:24:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4415672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KidScrappy/pseuds/KidScrappy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iwaoi week July day 5 (July 24th)</p>
<p>Prompt:<br/>We are each other’s harvest ; we are each other’s business ; we are each other’s magnitude and bond. (Gwendolyn Brooks)</p>
            </blockquote>





	>Day 5 (July 24th)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic involves an original character called Oikawa Umeko that is introduced on day 4 of Iwaoi week June, I would recommend reading that one before this if you're curious. It can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4116562).

The first time Hajime asks Oikawa to marry him they’re both nineteen and Oikawa showed up at his doorstep with a baby in his arms a week earlier.

“Don’t do that Iwa-chan,” Oikawa replies, he hasn’t even looked up from where he’s preparing a bottle for Umeko.

“Why not? You can’t raise a kid on your own, what if something happens to you!” Hajime tries his best not to shout. He doesn’t want to make the baby cry again.

“I made a mistake, and now I’ll have to deal with the consequences. I won’t let you take the fall for my screw ups.” Oikawa finishes the bottle and sets it on the counter before finally facing Hajime. “Nothing is going to happen to me, Iwa-chan. I can’t let anything happen to me.”

Oikawa puts his hand on Hajime’s shoulder before leaving him alone in the kitchen while he goes to his daughter. Hajime marvels at how fast having a kid made Oikawa grow up.

\-----

They manage to get a small two bedroom apartment after a year, not wanting to put too much strain on Hajime’s mother. Oikawa sleeps on a futon next to Umeko’s crib, unable or unwilling to leave his daughter’s side for longer than necessary. Needing to always be there whenever she needs something.

A few weeks after they move in together Umeko utters her first word, “papa”, and Oikawa starts crying. 

Another month later Umeko is running, some of her steps still a wobbly, towards Hajime when he comes home from work. With arms outstretched she calls him ‘mama’. For a split second, his smile leaves his face. But he swallows his worries and smiles brightly when he picks her up, lifting her high so she laughs.

\-----

“Don’t you think it’s confusing for her?” Hajime asks after Umeko has been put to bed. He and Oikawa are slumped on the couch in front of the tv, a bad sci-fi movie playing and take out on their laps. 

“What is?”

“Not having a mother.”

“She’s sixteen months old, Iwa-chan. Shapes confuse her,” Oikawa replies without looking away from the screen.

Hajime steals a dumpling from his plate. “Well maybe she doesn’t think about it now, but later. What will you tell her when she starts wondering what happened to her mother?”

Oikawa frowns at him, Hajime doesn’t know if it’s because of his question or because of the dumpling he took. 

“The truth, or a version of it at least. There’s no point in lying, it would just get her hopes up.”

Hajime thinks about that as he chews on another bite. It’s, remarkably mature of Oikawa. The way he always seems to be when it comes to Umeko.

“We could get married,” he says, “Avoid the conversation altogether.”

Hajime can feel Oikawa’s gaze boring in the side of his face as he refuses to look back, pretending to be interested in whatever bullshit Oikawa picked earlier.

“We’ve been over this Iwa-chan. I’m not marrying you.”

Figures. It was worth a shot though.

“Besides,” Oikawa continues, “I don’t think that would help clear up the whole ‘not having a mother’ thing.”

“Oh I don’t know. She did call me ‘mama’ today.” Hajime looks back now, just in time to see Oikawa spit out his noodles while laughing.

“That’s amazing Iwa-chan! You’re supposed to be my mom so I guess you’d be her grandmother though!” It’s been a while since Hajime saw Oikawa laugh like this, and he decides to relish in it instead of punching him.

That is until the sound of a young girl crying makes Oikawa stop. Apparently his laughing woke Umeko.

\-----

The third time Hajime asks Oikawa to marry him, Umeko beats him to it. 

She’s six years old now, long past wondering why she doesn’t have a mother around. She hadn’t seemed to care much, she still had Oikawa and Hajime to be there for her. And Hajime’s mother too, who seemed to enjoy playing the role of grandmother very much. Hajime worries that she might start pestering him for biological grandchildren soon, but for now she seems content with spoiling Umeko rotten.

“Iwa-chan,” she starts, having picked up the nickname from her father before Hajime could teach her different, “are you and papa married?”

Hajime can hear Oikawa stop in the middle of doing the dishes to listen in on their conversation. 

“No, we’re not,” Hajime replies simply.

“Oh,” Umeko mumbles, “Why not?”

Hajime smiles at her. “Why don’t you ask your dad?”

“Okay! Papa!” she yells over the back of the couch.

“I can hear you both just fine, you know?” Oikawa mumbles but he’s walking towards the couch, drying his hands on a dish towel.

“Why don’t you marry Iwa-chan?” Umeko asks again.

Hajime is looking at Oikawa from behind her, failing to keep down a smile. “Yeah, why don’t you?”

Oikawa glares at him, but turns his gaze soft when he faces his daughter. “Because I don’t want to marry him.”

“But you love Iwa-chan,” Umeko says, and Hajime perks up even more. He watches Oikawa go a very interesting shade of red. He wouldn’t react like that if he loved him only as a best friend, right?

“That doesn’t matter,” Oikawa mumbles. 

Umeko seems to be thinking that over. “Then I’ll marry Iwa-chan!”

“What!?” Oikawa shrieks and Hajime is unable to keep himself from barking out a laugh. 

“That’s good! So you love me too, Umeko?” Hajime says, ruffling the beautiful hair she inherited from her father.

“Yes! I love you the second most in the whole world, right after papa!” Umeko beams up at him as she says it. 

“I love you the second most in the world after your dad as well,” Hajime replies, hugging Umeko close to him and stealing a glance towards Oikawa.

It wasn’t how he had planned to confess but it seems to have the desired effect. Oikawa’s blush deepens to a bright scarlet as he turns around and storms back into the kitchen.

\-----

Hajime is sitting at the dining table, finishing up some work, when Oikawa comes out of the bedroom after reading Umeko her bedtime story.

“So…” he begins.

“Don’t even start with me,” Oikawa replies, flipping him off.

\-----

When Umeko turns ten years old she switches rooms with Hajime, taking the smaller room for herself and making him drag his futon to lay next to Oikawa’s.

“Maybe we should start looking for a bigger place,” Hajime says when the lights are off and they’re both in bed. 

“We can’t afford one,” Oikawa states, “Besides, it’s kind of like when we were kids and would have sleepovers all the time.”

Hajime turns over, he can only just make out Oikawa’s profile in the dark. “We’re not kids anymore.”

Oikawa laughs. “No, I guess not. I never imagined that I would be sharing a room with Iwa-chan at twenty nine.”

“I did.” Hajime can see Oikawa turn to face him as well. “I just also imagined we’d be sharing a bed.”

He had tried confessing again multiple times over the last couple of years, even proposed a few times when things got rough, but Oikawa kept shooting him down. Oikawa had always called him too stubborn for his own good.

“Why do you keep doing that?” Oikawa asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Do what? Tell you I love you and ask you to marry me?” Hajime took the sound of a rustling blanket to mean that Oikawa nodded. “Because I do love you, and I know that you love me. I just hope that someday you’ll stop being an idiot about it and say yes. And maybe you’ll finally let yourself be happy for once.”

It’s silent in the room after that, and in the dark when Hajime has nothing to gauge the time by it seems to stretch forever. But after what could be ten minutes or eternity Oikawa’s blanket rustles again, a hand crawling under Hajime’s blanket and grasping for his own.

Oikawa’s palm is cool against his and the calluses on his fingertips, once from volleyball now from endless hours of overtime to make ends meet, are a soothing sort of rough as they rub against the back of Hajime’s hand.

“Thank you, Iwa-chan.”

\-----

When she enters middle school Umeko signs up for the volleyball team, and Hajime wishes he could be surprised. 

Oikawa may not have time to play anymore, a friendly game between high school friends aside, but he still keeps up with the high school and college leagues with the terrifying focus that made him such a good captain. 

And maybe he should have pushed Umeko to pursue interests of her own but she so easily folded herself on the leftover space on the couch next to her father to review matches with him, picked up the rules and positions from listening to Oikawa complain about the local teams and honed her game sense by hunching over a game plan instead of her homework. 

How could a daughter of Oikawa’s be anything other than an obsessive freak like himself anyway?

Both Oikawa and Hajime take a day off work to watch her first match together. Oikawa is leaning over the railing more often than not and Hajime has to stop him from yelling at the referee multiple times. 

Umeko doesn’t play til the third set, when the other team is two points ahead and poised to win she steps on the field. To an outside she seems calm and collected, regarding the court and the positions of her teammates with a focussed gaze, but Hajime can see the slight tremor in her left hand before she grabs the ball. The same tic Oikawa used to have. 

She takes a deep breath and tosses the ball up, she jumps and Hajime can see she’s spent just as many hours as her father would on perfecting her form. When her hand connects with the ball it slams across the net with a speed and strength nobody would expect from a twelve year old girl. The point is scored before the other team can even register it happening. 

Her coach is yelling about how risky a move that was from the sidelines but Umeko stares up at where Oikawa and Hajime are cheering her on and flashes them a smile and a peace sign. Oikawa throws his arms around Hajime and yells how proud he is of their daughter right in his ear.

The next match she is a starting member of the team. Hajime buys her a new set of kneepads as congratulations, knowing she’ll appreciate that more than flowers or jewelry.

\-----

“I want to go to Karasuno,” Umeko says over dinner in her last year of middle school.

Hajime sets down his chopsticks and looks over to where Oikawa seems to have frozen in the middle of bringing some rice up to his mouth. 

“Why Karasuno?” Hajime asks while Oikawa is still occupied. 

“It’s close and they have a good volleyball team. The classes aren’t as difficult as those at Aobajousai but their college prep classes should help get me into a good university,” Umeko rattles of the list of pros as if she’s rehearsed them. She probably has.

Hajime means to reply to that but Oikawa cuts him off before he can even start. “We’ll go to the festival so you can see the school and get a feel for it.”

“Yes!” Umeko stands up and asks to be excused from the table, dropping her dishes in the sink before disappearing into her room. 

“You’re not against it?” Hajime asks when he and Oikawa are alone.

“I don’t think I could talk her out of it if I was. She must get that stubbornness from you, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says while he collects the remaining dishes so he can start washing them. 

Hajime follows him into the kitchen and grabs a dish towel. “Bullshit, you’re just as stubborn as I am. And I’m not her father.”

“Nature versus nurture,” Oikawa muses. Hajime thinks that if it was a combination of those two there never was a chance for Umeko to grow up complacent.

“Chibi-chan is the coach at Karasuno,” Oikawa says.

“You never mentioned that before.” Hajime takes the bowl Oikawa just finished washing from him and dries it off.

“It didn’t matter, he’s a good coach. And she’s right about their team being strong.”

“Does it matter now?” Hajime places the bowl in the cabinet above the sink and reaches for a new one to clean.

“It shouldn’t. But…” Oikawa trails off.

“But you’d rather coach her yourself instead of letting the enemy do it?” Hajime tries and Oikawa nods. “High school was a long time ago Oikawa, you’re not just the setter from Seijou anymore. And Hinata-kun isn’t out to terrorize you with his oddball spikes.”

Oikawa nods again. Instead of the bowl he’s trying to hand to him, Hajime holds Oikawa’s hand between his. 

“You said yourself that he’s a good coach. He won’t dislike her because of her last name. She’ll be a good addition to any team she might be part of and will continue to get better.” He presses a kiss to Oikawa’s soapy fingers.

“You’re right, she’ll be fine.” Oikawa leans over to kiss Hajime on the cheek, catching him off guard for a few seconds. But then he smiles back and everything is right again.

“Besides,” Hajime continues, “at least it isn’t Shiratorizawa.”

Oikawa drops the pot of the rice cooker on the kitchen floor when he starts laughing, the thing making a loud banging noise and causing Umeko to come back out again and see what her parents are up to.

\-----

It turns out Umeko and Hinata Shouyou get on like a house on fire. 

During tryouts she impresses him enough to earn a starting spot on the team and in her second team she’s made captain. The residing third years don’t seem to mind much, instead choosing to focus on their studies, but the first years are motivated by her drive and charisma. She even manages to get the highest turnout to show up for tryouts since Hinata-kun himself was captain. 

Together they come up with plays and practice schedules that optimize each member’s skills and talents and they steamroll the competition at interhigh.

Even Oikawa can’t claim that Hinata-kun is prejudiced.

\-----

Oikawa cries at her graduation and Hajime tries very hard not to. 

They help her pack for college and drop her off at the dorm she’ll be staying at for at least the next year. 

While Oikawa is getting some more stuff from the car Umeko pulls on Hajime’s sleeve to get his attention. 

“Iwa-chan, thank you”

“What for?” Hajime says as he finishes setting up Umeko’s computer.

“For everything I guess, for raising me.” Her voice drops to a whisper when she’s embarrassed, just like Oikawa’s does.

Hajime stares at her. “Of course, you’re sort of my daughter as well.”

Umeko smiles, that ‘just a little shy of real’ smile that he’s so used to seeing on his best friend instead.

“Still, it must have been difficult for you as well. Suddenly getting saddled with taking care of dad and me. Having to put your own life on hold like that,” she mumbles.

Hajime gets up from where he was sitting at the desk and walks over to wrap her in his arm. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you and your father you know that right?”

“I know,” her hands are clutching at the back of his shirt, “You haven’t asked him to marry you in a while.”

Hajime has lost count of how often he had proposed in the past seventeen years, but it’s been long enough since the last time that he’s surprised Umeko remembers it at all. 

“He always says no anyway,” he replies.

Umeko pulls back a little to smile at him, a real one this time.

“For what it’s worth, I think you should try one more time.”

Before Hajime gets the chance to say something to that the door opens and Oikawa walks in with another box in his arms and asks them why they are having heartfelt hugs without him.

\-----

The house is quiet without Umeko. Her empty seat at the dining room table seems to be too depressing for Oikawa to deal with so Hajime drags him out for dinner at their favourite ramen place a few blocks from the apartment.

The night air is cool for the time of year, but the sky is cloudless and in the suburbs it’s even possible to see the stars.

Oikawa walks with his head thrown back, lifting his arm now and then to point out a constellation or anything else he notices while Hajime tries to keep him from walking into lamp posts. Just like they did when they were teenagers.

Oikawa looks different, and Hajime doesn’t have to see himself in a mirror to know he does as well. He wouldn’t call either of them old but the stress of having been teen dads, voluntary or not, is etched into their faces. No matter how much expensive eye cream Oikawa uses there are laugh lines at the corners of his eyes that are visible even when his face is relaxed.

Hajime thinks they suit him, his best friend’s flawless skin was a little creepy.

He must have been staring more intently than he thought because Oikawa catches on and looks back at him. 

“Iwa-chan?” he asks.

Hajime smiles at him and Oikawa replies with an unsure smile of his own.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine, just thinking,” Hajime says. He remembers what Umeko told him earlier that day and reaches for Oikawa’s hand.

Oikawa seems curious but doesn’t pull away. Hajime presses a kiss to the inside of his wrist before looking him in the eye.

“Oikawa…”

“Hm?”

“Will you marry me?”

Hajime is ready to be rejected again, ready to be brushed off with some excuse or another. He’s not ready for Oikawa to take a step to close the distance between them and give him the kiss he’s been craving for over two decades.

Oikawa’s lips are cold but smooth from the chapstick he uses, his breath is clean and fresh, like he knew this was coming and prepared. 

Hajime really thinks that after thirty years of friendship Oikawa shouldn’t be able to surprise him anymore.

“Yes I will,” Oikawa says for good measure, just in case Hajime might have interpreted that kiss as anything other than a ‘yes’.

Hajime puts his hands on the side of his face and pulls Oikawa in for another kiss. And another. And another. Dinner forgotten they stand on the sidewalk in the dark under the stars and kiss until they both have to come up for air. 

Hajime can’t remember how often he has asked Oikawa to marry him but he’s pretty sure every single one of them was worth it to get here in the end.


End file.
